Underpowered truck??

E

eastsidetimber

New member
Hi guys -

I read the posts everyday but first time posting...wanted opinions on whether or not this truck is underpowered. I'm considering buying a mid 90's Ford CF6000 cab over with a 5.9 Cummins and Allison auto transmission rated for 26k with hydraulic brakes. It would have an 18 foot bed (14ft dump with 4ft in front to load a ditchwitch zahn). Say I have the ditchwitch loaded, a 14x8x5 bed full of chips and pulling a 5-7k chipper, can this motor and tranny keep up? I'm in Seattle and dealing with probably equal parts flat ground and hills.
 
I would say its under powered for what you want to do. You can pump those motors up though but I do not have experience with that.
 
Underpowered is all depending on who's driving, if you want to hold speed up hill it's underpowered if you want to get to and from work and not worried if you slow down it will work my grapple truck is tagged 65,000lb and is only 280 hp it's slow up hill or on a Windy day but it works I won't win a race but I only drive it to and from the job I don't drive it 8 hours a day or get paid per mile
 
Youll lose a substantial amount of power threw that trans. Most likely it's a 4 speed 545 without a lockup converter. They are pretty much bullet proof, but not efficient trannys. In stock form it'll be slow but get the job done. But those are the easiest injection pumps to bump up the power on. You can easily get another 100 hp with just a simple fuel plate change. You can get as much power as you'll ever need out of that motor depending on what you want to spent.
 
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My biggest concern is having a reliable truck... I'm not trying to win any races but I'd rather not be completely bogged down on a hill fully loaded. Auto trans is important to me and if I can pump the motor enough to make up for the loss of power through the auto trans then I'm game for that. These days after work, I'd rather just be able to zone out on the drive home. I'd also like to run Cummins in all my trucks and equipment if possible. All my equipment is Cummins now except for a Kubota loader and I feel like it makes things easier maintenance wise. Any other suggestions for an under CDL cabover truck that runs cummins?
 
I like those older ford cabovers like what you are looking at. I had one with an 8.3 cummins that I liked, it was a cdl truck though.
 
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